THE PEOPLE v. COLETTE JEAN EANDI
C078257
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT
Filed 8/19/15
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT
(Butte)
----
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.
COLETTE JEAN EANDI,
Defendant and Respondent.
C078257
(Super. Ct. No. CM042230)
APPEAL from a judgment (order of probation) of the Superior Court of Butte County, James F. Reilley, Judge. Vacated and remanded with directions.
Matthew A. Siroka, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Respondent.
A complaint filed on November 4, 2014, alleged that defendant Colette Jean Eandi willfully failed to appear in August 2014 on a felony charge of possessing a controlled
substance (
By operation of a November 2014 initiative, defendant’s crime of drug possession had been reduced to a misdemeanor at the time of its dismissal on
The People contend the trial court’s action was unauthorized. We agree, and we will thus vacate the order of probation, allowing the trial court to exercise its discretion on remand to reduce the offense to a misdemeanor pursuant to section 17 or not.4
The facts underlying the offense are immaterial. For this reason, simply for context, we note the probation report stated defendant was found with methamphetamine in her possession in her home in June 2014. She failed to appear for her arraignments in July and August 2014. The trial court issued an arrest warrant. The warrant was served and defendant was taken into custody on October 31, 2014. Defendant told the probation officer that her failure to appear stemmed from transportation difficulties because she does not drive.
DISCUSSION
Section 1320 was not among the offenses explicitly included in the text of the Proposition 47 initiative or the analysis of the Legislative Analyst. (Voter Information Guide, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 4, 2014) pp. 35-36, 71-73.) We are thus not concerned here with the lack of any direct effect of the initiative on defendant’s conviction for failure to appear, contrary to the manner in which the People have framed their appeal.
the legislative view that punishment for jumping bail under section 1320.5 is proper regardless of the disposition of the underlying offense].) As a result, the true question is whether the initiative has a collateral retroactive effect such that the pending felony drug possession charge at the time of the breach of promise of failure to appear in August 2014 became a misdemeanor as a matter of law retroactively, thereby negating a necessary statutory element of a failure to appear on a felony charge: having been “charged with . . . the commission of a felony” (
The initiative sought to reduce punishment for six specific drug and theft offenses (including the underlying possession offense at issue here), reducing them from straight felonies and wobblers to misdemeanors. It achieved this goal in two different ways. To provide prospective relief for pending and future convictions, the initiative amended the punishment under these statutes as of November 5, 2014, for eligible defendants (those without prior convictions under
Notably, nothing in the express language of the initiative or its ballot materials reflects any intent to provide retroactive collateral relief as a matter of law in the absence of a petition in a prosecution for a different offense premised upon a former felony violation of the affected statutes. At the time of defendant’s failure to appear in August
2014, there was a felony charge pending against defendant for which she had promised to appear. The initiative did not purport to exercise a power to go back in time and alter the felony status of every affected offense in every context. It merely offered the possibility of a reduction in current punishment for a conviction or a redesignation of the status of completed punishment for a conviction on a
This is true notwithstanding the declaration of misdemeanor status for all purposes in section 1170.18, subdivision (k).6 In the context of appellate jurisdiction over felony appeals, Rivera (and its companion case, People v. Lynall (2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 1102, discussing more succinctly a slightly different procedural context) found this language—which parallels the language from section 17 with respect to the reduction of wobblers to misdemeanors—should be interpreted in the same way as being prospective, from that point on, and not for retroactive purposes.7 (Rivera, supra, 233 Cal.App.4th at p. 1100.)
As a result, the felony status of an offense at the time charges were filed with the trial court remained unchanged notwithstanding the November 2014 initiative enactment, conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Appeal. (Rivera, at pp. 1094-1095, 1099-1101.) Rivera similarly remarked on the absence of any indication that the electorate wished to venture outside the expressed context of directly reducing future and past punishment for convictions under the six included offenses. (Id. at p. 1100.)
The trial court therefore lacked authority to amend the complaint in case No. CM042230 to redesignate the offense as involving failure to appear on a pending misdemeanor charge.8 We must accordingly set aside the order of probation and remand for further proceedings on the original complaint, at which time the trial court may, if still inclined, exercise discretion to reduce the failure to appear violation to a misdemeanor.
The judgment (order of probation) is vacated, and we remand the matter for the trial court to proceed on the original felony complaint. (CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION)
BUTZ , J.
We concur:
HULL , Acting P. J.
DUARTE , J.